Beach 2011

After a crazy 3 days at Disney - a fast & furious 3 days from beginning to bitter end- we were all ready for some R&R. Let me mention here that the Disney part of this summer vacation was very last minute. We had planned our beach trip well in advance and while driving home from our last baseball tournament, about 3 weeks before our beach vacation, Joseph asked if I knew that HHI was only about a 4 1/2 hour trip north of Orlando. No... I didn't realize that. So the wheels were turning! Since Samuel had been claiming to be the only kid in his entire 4th grade class who had not been to Disney World for an entire year, we were seriously contemplating adding a quick Disney detour to our vacation. I made a couple of calls and learned that a friend from our church is now working for a travel agency specializing in Disney vacations. I gave her the dates, told her what we had in mind, and she put the entire package together for us even down to the stroller delivery to our resort. Perfect! So we surprised the boys with the news! Now... lets get to the beach part of this trip... After leaving Disney on Tuesday morning we drove to Daytona Beach where you can drive your car right out on the beach. We spent the morning there playing in the water and sand then loaded up to find some lunch and head up the coast. I loved the beautiful scenic drive through all of the little sea-side towns finally arriving at St. Augustine. We explored around here for a while then headed north again non-stop to Hilton Head Island. That night we took the boys out crabbing and fishing and got settled in for the rest of the week. The following day we decided to explore some of the Low Country... Savannah GA, Beaufort SC, and Tybee Island. We wandered around some of these little towns, had lunch at a little bayside cafe where the boys loved watching the boats come in and out. From there we headed to Tybee Island where we found the house where "The Last Song" was filmed. Finally, we had dinner at Uncle Bubba's - a Paula Deen restaurant. Loved the food here - I had the shrimp & grits and Joseph had the Low-Country Boil which we tried to re-create once we were back home (and did a pretty good job with). The follwoing days were nothing more than beach-filled days which I absolutely love, love, love! We were all perfectly content to spend hours in the sun and water, playing and exploring. Samuel & John Michael loved riding the surf on their boogie-boards and became quite skilled by the end of the week. They built one sand castle after another, buried each other from head to toe, and tried to dig a hole to the other end of the earth. One of our favorite things about HHI is renting bikes and this being our mode of transportation around the island. The boys absolutely love riding on the beach! We spent hours playing in the sun, reading, running, and laughing. We enjoy the beach so much that we avoid going in and 'getting ready' to go to dinner every night. So some nights we cooked at the condo... steamed shrimp linguini, grilled steaks and bacon wrapped scallops... Pretty good stuff! Every night we rode the bikes down to get ice-cream and go crabbing or fishing. Needless to say... the boys, and the parents, were exhaused every night of this trip but we have so many good memories that we are already reflecting on. After about ten days on the road we headed home and we all agreed that it had been a wonderful trip but it was time. It made my heart smile that the boys wanted to get back to their home... even with all of the good times we had shared on the road.. they were ready to go home. That, my friend, is a good thing!